It often happens during a real-time communication between parties, such as a telephone call, that one of the parties has to momentarily step away from the communication. The one party that is stepping away will likely leave the communication active and just set down their communication endpoint without putting the other party or parties on hold. The other party or parties may become impatient after a while, and may wish to leave a message for the one party that stepped away, and then hang up. But, without having been put on hold, the other party or parties are currently not provided with a mechanism by means of which they can leave a message for the one party.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,704,565 and 5,930,339 describe systems that allow a party that has been put on hold to leave a message for the hold-initiating party. These solutions do not enable a party who has not been put on hold to leave a message for the other party to the call.
A further disadvantage of these prior art systems is that the hold-initiating party must dial into a message system in order to retrieve the message. It would be desirable if the party could receive the message immediately upon returning to the present call.
Also, in a conference situation, one of the conferees may wish to drop off of the conference, but does not wish to interrupt the conference by announcing his or her intention to drop off. It would be desirable if a conferee could leave a message for receipt by the conferees immediately either upon a break in the conference conversation or upon the conversation being directed to him or her.